If I were President I’d be all over $97.5 billion to save a few thousand citizens. How much do you think we spend in antiterrorism efforts?
*A few hundred thousand citizens
I mean I’d do it for a few thousand. Anyone it helps above that is just gravy.
As stated before, $97.5 billion is not the cost for a few thousand, it's the benefit for a several hundred thousand.
Also, if you're willing to spend $97.5 billion for a few thousand citizens, would you also be willing to spend $3.25 quadrillion to save 100 million citizens? If so, how would you do that?
Bro, we spend over $600 billion every year in military spending with the stated goal of protecting US citizens. We certainly haven’t saved more US lives vs the countries who spend way less, so I think the calculus has already been done and most people disagree with your valuation of human life.
Bro, $125,000 for a QALY is pretty standard for the US. In the UK, NICE uses about $50,000 per QALY. People don't disagree with my valuation.
Military spending is extremely wasteful. Let's cut it drastically. No argument here.
What's going on is not a disagreement about the actual valuation of things. It's a misunderstanding of the benefits vs costs. There is a lot of fear mongering about the impacts of the virus and nearly complete ignoring of the costs. Our policy is proceeding in a way that is essentially based on an assumption that stopping the spread of this virus is the only thing that matters. In the grand scheme of things, we can afford the misguided path we are going down, but it is very much not worth it. We would be much better off proceeding about our normal lives and letting the virus impact those that it does.
However, public health officials are not interested in thinking about all of the negative consequences of their prescriptions. They have a one-track mode of thinking and cannot think outside of it.
